I’d like to restate my goal with this blog. I want to help Baby Boomers and seniors find joy, excitement, and satisfaction in their lives after retirement. Retirement can be from a job, career, profession, parenting, or whatever your main activity was in your younger years. I’m starting to give public talks on the same subject. The title of this blog is: “Reinventing Myself in My Senior Years.” Keeping with that theme, my public talks are entitled: “Reinventing Yourself in Your Senior Years.”

Humans are social animals. We have a natural instinct to stay together; we need each other. Make it work to your advantage. Figure out how to interact with your fellow beings so that you don’t become upset, agitated, or stressed out. You can’t change the behavior of others. You can only change your own behavior. So, go ahead and change your behavior.

Analyze what you’re doing that causes you to be the loser, the victim, the ostracized one–whatever typically happens to you during many interpersonal encounters. Try some behavior modification techniques on yourself. If you have a hard time interacting with people, getting along with others, or making new friends, observe those who do it so easily. What do they do? Once you figure that out, start imitating them. Yes, it will feel artificial at first. But, it’s like breaking in a pair of new shoes. Slowly, it will fit. You’ll start to be comfortable with your new behavior and it will become incorporated into how you act.

You must take action to make your life better. If you’re passive and just let life happen to you, you take what you get. To aim your life in the direction you want it to go, you must be proactive. Go ahead, give it a try. If it doesn’t work, you can always go back to being passive.

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Lee Gale Gruen’s memoir is: Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class (website: AdventuresWithDadTheBook.com). It is available on amazon.com.